On Monday, German multinational industrial giant Siemens announced that its Smart Infrastructure (SI) and Financial Services (SFS) divisions have joined with Macquarie’s Green Investment Group to launch a joint distributed energy venture, Calibrant Energy. Calibrant will provide on-site energy-as-a-service (EaaS) solutions for enterprise customers, including corporate, industrial, and public institutional clients such as municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals, without the need for upfront investment from those entities.
Using an EaaS or fee-based, subscription-style business model, Calibrant will build onsite energy solutions to provide cost savings and certainty, resilience, and low-cost energy grid augmentation. It will provide these potential benefits through a mix of energy technologies that can be deployed at scale, including solar, integrated solar-battery solutions, hybrid systems, standalone batteries, microgrids, combined heat and power, and centralized heating and cooling infrastructure upgrades.
Calibrant Energy will plan, design, build, own and operate these sustainable energy production and storage assets, and will also take on upfront capital investment.
Changing conditions
“Calibrant Energy is laying the foundation to respond to the changing financial market conditions and demand for sustainable infrastructure and clean energy projects,” said John Kovach, Head of Energy & Performance Services Americas, Siemens Smart Infrastructure. “With this launch, we continue to deliver on our commitment to society by driving sustainability and customer choice in grid edge technologies.”
“This venture is about making it simple for the customer, while also leveraging a growing set of technologies and applications around distributed energy,” said Greg Callman, Global Head of Energy Technology at Macquarie Capital. “Crafting a simple and compelling customer solution requires a combination of discipline and innovation, and Calibrant is purpose built.”
“As an experienced investor in energy and infrastructure initiatives throughout the United States, SFS has been a pioneer in providing flexible financing solutions for the advancement of distributed energy projects,” said Anthony Casciano, CEO, Siemens Financial Services, Inc. “Combining Siemens’ innovative technology solutions and – together with GIG – adding our own financing and risk management expertise, Calibrant Energy will help enable customers to obtain resilient low-cost energy and meet sustainability goals with no up-front cost.”